Say Thank You With A Coffee

UPDATE: Now in Full Color! – Visual Testimonials are now available in 7 different colors… read more

In early March, we sent a survey to our real estate clients inviting them to provide feedback on our performance and to ask their opinion about several potential new service offerings. As a result of their feedback, we quickly built and launched new services that were completely within our control, like visual testimonials.

One of the things we learned in the survey is that more than 40% of the survey respondents did not thank their clients for filling out a customer satisfaction survey. Given the level of detail we collect, we found that a bit high. As a followup question, we asked our clients if providing an option to send a gift card as a thank you would be a good idea.

55% of respondents liked the idea of a gift card as thank you for a survey response.

We believe this number may have actually been higher. In looking at the comments, a large percentage of those who did not like this option answered the question on the assumption that the gift was an incentive offered as part of the survey invitation. They answered the question in a way that indicated that they thought we might be attempting to entice a response. This was not the case. We were asking about making it easier and more meaningful to say, “thank you” after a response was already received. So we took this as a clear indication that we should build a system to make it easier for our clients to say, “Thank you.”

Coffee is Served!

Sample email to a customer to say thanks with a coffee

Working with our partner, Tango Card, we have now secured permission from Starbucks® to offer a new program – Say Thank You With A Coffee. Beginning today, when you receive a survey response, or a survey response and a testimonial from your customers, you’ll have the option to send your customers a Starbucks® gift card as a thank you for taking the time to provide you feedback. Instructions for how this works will be included in every survey response you receive.

In addition, agents who wish to go back and thank clients who may have recently provided feedback may do so by going through the testimonial approval process again in their agent dashboard. To do this, simply select the response you wish to send a thank you for, click on review and follow the steps to send your gift card (the option to say thank with a coffee appears at the of the process). The gift card will be sent via email from you via RealSatisfied. We will provide a suggested message, but you will have the ability to customize that message in any way you see fit.

We are excited to bring this options to our clients and look forward to seeing the response!

Note: Say thanks with a coffee is initially available in the United States and Canada and all billing currently is USD only. We are exploring options for other markets, please stay tuned!

Starbucks Disclaimer: The Starbucks word mark and the Starbucks Logo are trademarks of Starbucks Corporation. Starbucks is also the owner of the Copyrights in the Starbucks Logo and the Starbucks Card designs. All rights reserved. Starbucks is not a participating partner or sponsor in this offer.

About The Author

Jeff Turner

Jeff is President of RealSatisfied. He brings more than 25 years of experience as both an entrepreneur and an executive to the team. Born in Grafton, WV, Jeff earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Grace College (Indiana) and a Master’s degree in School Psychology from Ball State University (Indiana). Jeff is married to Racquel (Rocky) and they have six children. (That is not a typo.)
You can learn and read more here: jeffturner.info.

Thanks for your feedback Renae – while this aspect of our service is only currently available in the US and Canada, we are working with our partners to see how we may be able to provide something similar in Australia.

In the mean time simply saying thank you to your customers for feedback is a simple as a phone call, email or note.

In 30 years, as a teacher assistant, a teacher and a Preschool Director , I taught children to use their magic words: please and thank you. These magic words must be taught from home and be reinforced in school.
There will be so many well-behaved and well-manner human beings on the earth 🙂
Thank you RealSatisfied staff for your hard work to share your excellent ideas!

I think this is a fantastic idea. My only concern is that if I was to use this in my area my clients would not be able to use it. The closest Starbucks is 47 minutes away. If there was an option for Dunkin Donuts, that would be tremendous since there is one on almost every corner around here.

Thank you. We’ve tried to make this as simple as possible, knowing that not everyone would be able to take advantage. That said, clients who can’t use the cards can choose instead to donate to charity upon receipt. In this case the old saying, “it’s the thought that counts,” is probably very true.

Now what do i do with all the Starbucks gift cards I bought to send out myself as Thank you’s?

Thanks for adding this, it will sure simplyfy the process and saying thank you is important. I assume the cards will be available in $5, $10 denominations?

One last hing, at the end of the survey the person filling it out can leave their name and location. I fillled tht out with only a first name and location (which some folks seem to prefer). Do respondents know they can do that rather than first and last.

Courtney, we’re sorry we’ve made this simpler for you. 🙂 As for how a client leaves their name, we provide an open form that allows them to put whatever they wish. We do not lead them in any way in that regard.

I also love this idea. And Starbucks is my FAVE! But unfortunately, like others have said, we do not have a Starbucks in our smaller community. The closest Starbucks is easily an hour away. While many of my clients are also Starbucks fans, it would be nice to have a few options to send them – Tim Horton’s would be the other big player here in Canada. 🙂 Just a suggestion. Thanks for providing such a great service!

I think the survey is great… we can always use testimonials from clients. I love the fact that we can choose to publish them, or not, as you well know even despite our best efforts, you can’t please everyone and there are those who just like to complain.

I am very disappointed however, that you only have one choice for saying thank you in the form of a Starbucks gift card. I NEVER go into that place, never use their products, the strong smell of burnt coffee permeating outside its doors makes me nauseous.. Not to mention their products are HIGHLY overpriced and overrated.

There are several well known coffee houses you could have included like Tim Horton’s and Second Cup, both very popular and not overpriced like Starbucks (at least in Canada, and I’m sure there are others in the U.S.) so we could have a choice.

Why are you not able to provide those as another choice? For the price of one overpriced drink at Starbucks, you could probably get a sandwich AND a drink at Tim Horton’s!

Why do I have pay in US dollars when I live in Canada? Every $5.00 gift card I choose will actually cost me $6.00 as the conversion rate is $1.00 USD = $.80 CAD. If I choose a $10.00 card it would cost me $12.00.

Unfortunately a Starbuck’s gift card is something I will never offer to my clients through this program.